Cat Toy
by Richard Rodriguez
Summary: Involving Nbu Latteh a Mithra from bastok, and a demented galka kidnapper. Warning: Contains explicit descriptions of violence and contains sexual abuse against women.
1. Chapter 1

Cat Toy

By: Richard Rodriguez

Chapter 1

Slipping quietly from shadow to shadow in the residential district of bastok, Nbu Latteh used her keen sight to scout for potential prey. Adventurers were known to have more money than they knew what to do with, and drink far more than their fair share. Over the last month she had found she could make very good money just lightening their loads, far more in fact than she could working houses in even the wealthy markets district.

The racket was made all the better by the marks not even knowing how much money they had most of the time, and being too drunk to recall if they had bought another round for the house last night or not, meaning there was very little heat on Nbu.

Passing over a trio of tarutaru supporting each other down the street, probably trying to make it to the home of one of them to continue their drinking, Nbu kept her eyes peeled for more acceptable prey. Alone prey. Leaping to the top of a stack of boxes in a single fluid motion, she scanned down the street towards the Mines district, and grinned at what she saw.

Outlined in the light of the half moon was the towering silhouette of a galka. Too large and with too thick of a skin to even feel her cut their purse strings, usually, and usually unwilling to turn to the hume officials to press charges, they made an excellent target; especially when they were intoxicated, as this one appeared to be, as he struggled to stand again after falling flat on his face.

Making the lunge from boxes to rooftop, Nbu sped along the edge of the roves, down and in a near crouch, occasionally using her hands for balance, she made her way to the edge of the road near her intended mark. At this distance, so close, she could hear him slurring the words of Battle Anthem of the Republic, recognizing it was a feat in itself, because most of the words were unrecognizable.

Waiting, watching ever so closely, the man walked right under her place, never expecting her presence. Hopping down, Nbu catches herself on the ground on all fours, her strong and supple arms and legs bracing the impact expertly, with no sound audible to the human ear.

Masking her breathing to a silent whisper, and stepping in time with her target, she moves forward until she is a mere arm's length away from the jangling purse hanging from his belt. Drawing her knife from its cleverly oiled sheath, she moved both hands in unison, slicing the leather thong that held it to the belt, and snatching it from the air on the upswing of the great, thudding man's steps.

Spinning to run, she never noticed her danger until the massive hand was latched onto the back of her neck, a meaty thumb at the base of her skull, the fingers on the opposite side. Both clamped like a steel vise, and though she muffled her urge to scream in fright and shock, she could not have if she tried, for they prevented her jawbone from moving downward enough to open her mouth, a fact that was, for the moment, lost on her.

Panic moved through the mithra's mind, followed closely by the cool demeanor that had helped her survive for all of these years. Several explanations sped through her mind, each dismissed in turn.

"Here! You dropped this." No, too corny, no one would buy that.

"You left this back at the tavern, sir!" No, She couldn't even know which tavern the man had been in, or he might have even been at the homes of friends.

"Oh my! Your grip is so strong, and your hands so big! What else do you have of such strength and size…" Yes, tried and true, if said with the proper purr, this should work. She could even manage to get him in a compromising situation, and knock him unconscious, managing to flee not only with life and limb intact, but his money as well.

It was to no avail, however. A second hand grasped her wrist, of the hand holding the knife, not the money pouch. Sighing inwardly, she cursed herself for forgetting the blade until now, this would be much harder to explain. But before she had a chance to ponder the matter further, her thinking was obscured by the burst of pain that moved up the arm as the powerful hand holding it twisted. Around until the hand grew numb, the fingers losing control and going limp, letting the knife clatter to the ground.

The fingers of her other hand dug tightly into the leather pouch, and had she been stronger might have bent the gold coins within. Her other arm, she felt was twisted up behind her, at an uncomfortable, though no longer painful angle, and the strong arms began to push her down the street. Her eyes widened further as the towering head bent down to beside her large ears, and whispered into them.

"I'm taking you for punishment, thief," the voice grated. And though her face was washed with his hot breath, and there were wine fumes upon it, there were nowhere near as many as she had guessed. Cursing herself inwardly, she realized she had been tricked. And punished? For sure this was a sting, and she was being dragged before the city guard at this very moment.

A much stronger sense of panic moved through her body. With no real defense against her thievery this time, she was sure to be found guilty. She tried briefly to break free of the iron grip at her neck and arm, but though her feet strained against the cobblestones, they were just dragged forward by the implacable strength of her captor.

Again, the calm inner voice that had kept her alive spoke. She forced her breathing to slow again, and told herself everything would work out. It always had. She could tell the tribunal she stole only to feed her daughter. Surely even in Hume dominated bastok, where judgement was fast, punishment harsh, and non humes were rarely given a totally fair trial, surely one on the tribunal had children, and she could work them over to her side. Perhaps, even, there was another mother there, one she could get to sympathize with her.

All this and more went through Nbu's head as she tried to keep her feet up with the longer strides of her captor. However after a few more moments passed, she saw they were moving farther away from the large and billowing smokestacks of the Metalworks, Bastok's center of government, and headquarters of the guard.

Confusion set in this time, and only deepened when the man holding her dragged her to the doorway of an apartment, the windows of all the other on the street were dark, where they were not boarded up, and many of the doors sported large iron locks, barring them closed from the outside and showing they were vacant.

The huge three fingered hand released her wrist, which was rather numb from the grip, and fumbled for a mere moment at the man's belt for the ring with a single key upon it. Deftly he inserts it into the door lock, a large darksteel affair beneath a sturdy latch, set into the massive oaken door. And he opens it.

Expecting to see an undercover hideout of the guard within, her confusion only deepens, along with the undercurrent of panic, as the muscles of the arm on her neck flex, and the other hand grasps the top of her trousers, and she is physically lifted from the floor, and thrown into the room.

Dazed for a moment, she makes no sound, and the sack of coins in her hand falls from now limp fingers to the floor, clinking slightly. The moment is quickly over, as the sounds of the door being slammed shut, bolted, and finally the ominous clicking of the key in the lock jars her back to her senses. She leaps to her feet in a crouch, her frantic eyes scanning the room, and not liking what they see. A single small window near the top of the wall, some seven feet above the floor lets in most of the light, the rest comes in from a lamp set in a nook in the far wall.

The room is sparsely furnished, with only a simple wooden table, a large chair, and a few crates and boxes. However, most disturbingly, she sees behind her a wall of metal bars, more than an inch thick, spaced barely a handspan apart and set floor to ceiling, and sunk into the masonry of both. A door made similiarly is set into the bars, and hangs open.

Looking up to the face of the galka standing in front of the door, and closest exit, she sees the corners of his mouth turned up in a smirk. She slowly rises nearly to her feet, but still hunched over a bit, ready to spring, and he speaks.

"No, I don't think you'll be going out that way any time soon," he chuckles, "You haven't even been into your cage, much less had your punishment." Placing both arms out to either side, as though to catch her no matter which way she ran, he began to slowly advance, and just as he made a lunge forward, added. "You've been a bad, bad girl, so you will be punished!"

Springing to her right, Nbu rolled and came up, using her legs like coiled springs to propel her self forward and towards the man. The sharp nails of her hands cut through the white cotton cloth of the man's shirt, digging into the skin beneath, and managing to draw blood. Gripping the belt as she goes by, she uses it as a pivot, swings behind him and kicks with both legs into the back of his knee, bringing forth a startled groan, and taking the leg out from under him. As he topples to the side of his wounded knee, she swiftly steps with him, and grasps the long black hair of his head in her hands, and brings the head onto her own knee as hard as she is able.

She tears the keyring from his belt, and spins to the door, inserting it into the keyhole, turning it, and grasps the bar to throw it back. As she struggles to lift the heavy steel bar, grunting with the exertion, she never hears the steps behind her, or the swish of air of the oncoming backhand slap that slams into the side of her head, knocking her body to the floor, where her face cracks against the stones.

Looking up, her vision begins to fog, the edges turning white, leaving only a tunnel like path of sight straight to her captor's face. Fighting to stay conscious, she tries to speak, but tastes only the coppery flavor of her own blood, and feels it running from her nose down her face. Unable to speak, her face too numb and her head to groggy, she spits towards the galka's face, missing by far, and spattering flecks of blood onto his trouser legs.

"You'll pay for that" he grimly intones, and his hand striking like a snake grasps her red hair in it's powerful grip, and tosses her bodily through the cell door, and into the cage. Her back crashes painfully against the stone wall, followed close by her skull, and her world becomes darkness.

Slamming shut the cell door, and locking it, he grips his cut side in his hand, and takes a few slightly limping steps towards the table, adding to her unconscious form over his shoulder, "And these too."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Light slowly filtered in to the world of Nbu. Its brilliance causing her to groan as her slitted eyes opened ever so slightly. Groggily she tried to sit up, and in so doing was introduced into a new world of pain as her head shifted. Holding it gingerly with both hands, she leaned forward, wincing as her stiff and painful back added its protest as well. After a short time as she became more awake, she realized two things very quickly, that she was very thirsty, and needed very much to empty her bladder. 

In the following seconds as she looked around her for a means to either, the events of the night before came rushing back in vivid detail, as well as the horror of her current situation. 

In a panic she looked around the room, its contents even dingier in the light of day. And rising she looked about the cell. Finding little hope of escape, but at least a small amount of relief, she moved towards the corner. It contained only a pile of hay, perhaps bedding material; and two buckets. One a wooden pail, of the kind one uses to draw water, about half full, and the other a rusty metal bucket, and its lingering stench spoke plainly of its use. 

Looking about the room again, and straining her ears for any sound of watchers, she untied the laces at the front of her trousers, and lowered them, pulling aside also the loin cloth she wore under them, and squatted over the metal bucket. Here legs nearly giving under her, she leaned forward against the wall, supporting part of her weight with her hands, and began to urinate in the metal bucket. She winced slightly at first from the loud sound of urine hitting the metal, and then the splashing as she continued. Finishing, she pushed the bucket into the corner, careful not to slosh its contents on the floor, and pulled her trousers back up and began to tie them. 

However, she panics when she sees the laces. The end of both are cut, and thinking for a moment, she assumes it to have been removing her knots. Panicking, she searched the interior pockets, accessible only with them untied and lowered, as well as the hems of legs, and several seams along their length to find each one of the tiny tools she had hidden away had been removed. 

"So much for it being easy to pick the lock," she muses to herself. She ties the trousers on again in as secure of a knot as possible, and reaches for the water pail, bringing the small wooden dipper to her lips, and drinking. When she wipes her mouth with the back of her sleeve, she has to stifle a yelp, as the pain from her nose as she rubbed across it was severe. 

Feeling about her face, she can feel the dried blood where her nose flowed freely, and can taste the dried crust of blood at the corners of her mouth. 

"I've got to get out of here, NOW!" she screams inside her head, and stands, moving to the cell door, and reaches out and around to the locking mechanism. Feeling what her eyes cannot see, she slips her long right index finger nail into the keyhole, and begins to attempt to find the catches. 

Some minutes later, she sighs in frustration, and retreats from the door. Without the proper tools, she just cannot open a lock of such complexity, for complex it was, expertly crafted and quite expensive. Moving around the rest of the cell in hopes of finding another way out, she examines the walls, floor, and ceiling as best she can. 

There are no loose bars, no loose stones, and in fact, aside from evenly spaced inset eyes (for which to attach something, probably a chain, she thought with a shudder) she could not even find so much as a seam. Becoming quickly frustrated, and filled with screaming fear, she sat down again, and after a moment tears off the tail of her tunic, and dabbing the strip into some water, sets about to cleaning the dried blood off of her face as best she can, using the water in the pail as a crude mirror. 

As she goes about the chore, that calm inner voice returns, and she begins to try to craft a plan for a way out. Figuring her jailer might return at any time, or might very well be in the room next door, or above, or even outside the door at this very moment, she decided against screaming for help, since she could not predict what the man might do if he heard her raise such a noise, and would try to silence her. 

Neither could she burrow through wall nor floor, the stone was quite solid, and even the mortar of the floor resisted her best attempts. Perhaps there was merit in removing the handle of the metal bucket, and using it to try again at the lock, or maybe there was a sturdy enough stem or stick in the straw to use as an improvised lockpick. But she never got the chance to act as she suddenly heard the clatter and clicks as the outside door was being unlocked. 

Her shaking hands dropped the bloodied cloth, but she stills them as best as she is able, forcing them to be still, she slows her breathing and tries to wipe the look of foreboding off of her face, as the door silently opens on well oiled hinges. Stepping inside is the galka from the night before, and she is able to get her first good look at him. 

Incredibly tall, and massively wide, the man's hair is a wild shock of black, standing out in many directions nearly as bristles, and he had no mustache, yet a beard that went from one side of his hair all the way around to the other, under his chin. In his arms, he carried several packages, which he places on the table. 

The silence in the room is broken when he turns and looks, in an oh so un-worried manner, and seeing her as though for the first time, speaks. 

"Oh good, glad to see you got cleaned up and are looking well rested. I brought back some lunch if you'd like, and even have something sweet for desert, if you're good." He speaks in a calm and slightly cheery voice. 

Shocked at his calm demeanor, she tries to respond in as even and unconcerned a voice as she possibly can. "Thank you but no, I really do have business elsewhere today, and would like to get to it. We can schedule lunch for later if you like." And hoping beyond hope that this insane person will comply, she leans calmly against the wall, and glances up at the lit window as if checking the angle of the sun for the time. 

"Oh, that's a pity, but you won't be going anywhere. Certainly not today, and as for later, that depends on how well behaved you are." He replies, smiling a bit. He then begins to hum as he opens up one of the parcels, cutting the string with what Nbu recognized as her knife, dropped on the street earlier. He removes several containers of food, and sets them on the table. From another parcel he removes a collar, to which is attached a small silver bell. 

He moves over to the bars of the cage, while Nbu stifles every urge she has to run, and remains leaning against the back wall, as calmly as possible. "I picked up something pretty for you today too," he says in a happy voice, "Special and just for you, come here and let me put it on and we can have lunch." 

Her jaw dropping slightly and her temper flaring, she responds. "I will do no such thing, you won't put any collar on me, you crazy bastard, now let me out of here right now, and I'll just go, otherwise I will scream so loud the guard will come crashing down on this shithole faster than you can imagine!"

"Oh dear," he replies "You shouldn't have said that. I don't think you will be getting anything to eat for lunch, and probably no dinner either." Shaking his head as he walks back to the table to sit, he gently sets the collar down, and begins to pull out the containers of hot food, "And to think, I got you something so pretty, and so nice, and you are this ungrateful. You are really a very naughty kitty." 

Her composure breaking, she leaps towards the wall closest to the window, and begins screaming up at it at the top of her voice, pounding her hands ineffectually against the stone walls. "Somebody help me! A crazy galka has me prisoner, get me out of here, now! Please, can anybody hear me! Let me out!" she screams, her voice shrieking in pitches no human's could ever reach. After nearly three minutes, red faced, and exhausted, her throat aching, she collapses to her knees by the wall, gasping for breath. 

"That really won't do you any good," he states, as he cuts off a slice of roast mutton, before putting it into his mouth. "The walls, window, door, and even ceiling are warded with magical silence. I don't want unruly guests bothering the neighbors."

Her fist hits the wall one more time, and she lets out a muffled sob, as her head hits the wall as well. Around her frustrated tears, she squeezes out with her raw voice, "Please, just let me go." 

Spearing a piece of potato with his knife, her captor looks over to her. "Oh, but I will, if you can just learn to behave properly. We can't have stray kitties wandering the streets at night, making havoc." He says, a hint of compassion and care in his voice. He pops the bit into his mouth and chews, watching her. 

"No harm done, with your howling," He suddenly states, a bit of the cheery mood returning to his voice. Let me put your collar on, and then you can have some food, doesn't that sound good?"

Looking up at the man, Nbu decides he must be quite thoroughly insane, and that the best way through things might be to humor him. "Yes, I am very hungry, and that is a pretty, pretty, shiny collar." She chimes, trying to sound as upbeat as possible, but eying him, looking for some way to bring the man down in an effective manner. 

"Oh good! I am glad you're coming around," he says, "Practically leaping from his seat, he picks up the collar and comes towards the bars of her cage. "My arms won't fit through the bars, so I will need to open the door. Be nice."

He unlocks the door to the cell, and stepping gingerly in puts out his empty hand. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Come to me" he says in a high pitched voice a child might use trying to coax a pet from inside a drain pipe. "Nice and slow."

Slowly stepping forward, she gets within arm's reach of him, and closes her eyes, swallowing deeply, trying hard to repress her revulsion for the beast standing before her. She almost bolts when she feels the hand touch her shoulder, then that unyielding viselike grip returns. Not tight enough to bruise, yet strong enough to keep her firmly in his grasp, she knew the hand could tighten in an instant, and rock hard fingers dig their way to bone. 

With his other hand, he brings up the collar, and places it around her neck. Releasing his shoulder grip, he uses both hands to latch it, cinching it into place. Not tight enough to cut off air supply, but tight enough to have little give, he seemed satisfied, and began to step backwards out of the cell door. And she began to follow after he had taken a few steps. 

"No." He sternly says. "Kitty stays in her cage until she is well behaved all the time."

Thinking quickly, a gift she often used, she replies in her cheeriest and most fake voice. "But I-" correcting herself, "Kitty wants to come eat now, it smells so good." Liking her odds with one door or maybe a window between her and freedom, she hoped her gamble paid off, and would not make things worse. 

Stepping back and slamming the door of the cell, her captor wags his finger at her. "No, no, that's people food. I have kitty food right here." He says opening another of the parcels, "Here we go, nice fresh raw tuna. And a nice bowl of milk, too" 

Producing a small, shallow stone bowl, he ours milk into it from a flask, and picking up both the bowl and the tuna, he walks back to her cell. Placing both on the floor before the cell door, he pushes them under the small opening at the base of the door, no more than several small inches. 

Staring at the food in shock, she manages to squeeze out a flat "Yum.". Nbu had no problem with fish, mind you, living in a coastal city it was a staple of her diet. But she did prefer it cooked and not raw. Though she could stomach raw fish, as all her kind could, she did not care for it at all. And milk… she just plain simply hated milk. 

"Now eat up!" he said, sitting back at his table, and resuming his meal as well. 

Looking at the unappetizing mess before her, she realized she really was hungry, and thought that if she could just get the man to trust her, he might give up the opening she needed to escape, she pushed aside her distaste, and began to eat the raw fish, and drank small amounts of the milk, making sure that she made more of a show of drinking it than actually doing so. 

After finishing his meal, and noticing she was apparently done with hers, her captor came to the bars, and drug the remnants of the tuna and the bowl of milk back under the door. "Good kitty!" he praised her, "You're much more well behaved now." 

And walking to the table, he bundled up the containers, and wrapping, and placing it under his arm, moved towards the door. "I'll be back later, kitty, be good." He said, as he closed the door behind him. 

Sitting in the corner and sighing, Nbu decided to pass the time as best she could, trying to find an escape from her cell. 


End file.
